AMD's not letting Nvidia have all the graphics card fun at Computex this week, with some big ATI launches of their own. The Mobility Radeon HD 3800 is their new top-of-the-line notebook graphics card, with supposedly 3x the performance of the last gen. A part of the Puma platform, it brings performance/power balance features, as well as CrossFireX to notebooks, and is so far the only mobile GPU supporting DirectX 10.1 (Nvidia says it ain't no thang). Finally, it's the first ATI card to roll with XGP, basically a honkin' externally powered and cooled graphics card in a box when you wanna toss steroids at your notebook (and have the outlets to do so).

Notebooks equipped with ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3800 series allow users to experience the power of HD with graphics processing designed for work and play to satisfy the needs of the most demanding graphics professionals on the go. 2

"The ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3800 is the most feature-rich notebook graphics solution we have ever produced," said Matt Skynner, vice president of marketing, Graphics Products Group, AMD. "It's an ‘uber-performance' chip that beats all comers. Our notebook manufacturing customers now have the ability to create the ultimate in notebook solutions that feature amazing energy efficiency coupled with next-generation, unsurpassed mobile graphics technologies."

As the only high-performance mobile graphics solution capable of supporting applications created using Microsoft® DirectX® 10.11, ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3800 series offers superb HD game performance and life-like realism for The Ultimate Visual Experience™. New PCI Express® 2.0 support enables fast throughput and superior overall system performance — ideal for high-performance gamers. Notebooks with ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3800 series will allow users to enjoy the latest Blu-ray movies in full-HD 1080p resolution2 and free the CPU for other tasks. The ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3800 series also provides break-through energy efficiency with improved performance-per-watt to deliver exceptional battery life.

The ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3800 features a variety of new technologies designed to improve overall notebook performance:

* ATI CrossFireX technology for mobile graphics delivers high-performance PC gaming by combining multiple ATI Radeon™ graphics in a single notebook PC to increase graphics quality and performance. ATI CrossFireX is designed to the latest industry-standards for notebooks today.

* PCI Express 2.0 offers more than enough horsepower for the most demanding professional graphics applications by boosting 3D graphics performance while providing fast throughput resulting in an excellent overall system performance.

ATI XGP Technology is being first launched with the newly announced ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 3800 series for eye-catching HD graphics. As an industry first for notebooks, ATI XGP Technology delivers multi-GPU capabilities of scalable performance with ATI CrossFireX™ technology. The additional high bandwidth of the included USB 2.0 connectivity allows users to connect to a wide variety of USB-based devices, including external TV tuners, external Blu-ray players, and much more.

Björn Fehrm, head of Strategy and Innovation Consumer, EMEA, Fujitsu-Siemens Corp., said: "Powered by ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 3870 in an external AMILO GraphicsBooster, the ultra mobile AMILO Sa 3650, with ATI XPG technology, takes on two very different but equally compelling personalities. Use it for your daily computing with the internal graphics for outstanding mobility and battery life. Dock it to your AMILO GraphicsBooster when coming home, in a hotel room or at a LAN event and now your gaming and multimedia performance is in another world."

ATI XGP Technology is contained in an external chassis connected to the notebook via a specially designed self-latching, easy-connecting PCIe 2.0 cable from Japan Aviation Electronics Industry, Limited, a leading provider of electronic devices and connectors. Based on AMD's dedicated research and development, the cable also provides USB 2.0 connectivity directly to the notebook allowing for additional USB functionality. Independently cooled and powered, ATI XGP Technology offers the potential for higher performance than traditional entry-level graphics solutions. Notebook users can take advantage of the varied usage scenarios including multiple monitor support, high performance gaming, Blu-ray video playback, and increased graphics performance for video editing3.

* PCI Express® 2.0 offers more than enough horsepower for the most demanding professional graphics applications by boosting 3D graphics performance while providing fast throughput resulting in an excellent overall system performance